Dusan Bogdanovic
Doberman – Yppan: 7 pages
This piece, inspired by the music of the Balkans is very much in the usual style of Bogdanovic, as evidenced by the often changing time – signatures, and the complexity of the voices both harmonically and rhythmically, as lovers of his style will by now be well aware of in his music. So therefore the piece opens , as often is the case, with no key signature, and with a Largo melody in straight quavers in 3 / 4 , followed by a 4/4 bar now with a second , and a third voice underneath with the top voice continuing in quavers and crotchets, whilst the lowest voice is in triplet quavers followed by semi – quavers .This situation is constantly there in Bogdanovic’s music and you frequently find yourself putting 2 notes against 3, or five notes of a quintuplet, against a triplet of 3 notes underneath, which does make the music tricky to read and even harder to actually play.
After 13 bars of the Largo with five different time signatures used, the music suddenly speeds up to an Allegro Moderato that is largely in 12 /16 in 2 and later 3 voices with one (often the top) racing around in semi – quavers. After a brief climactic section the final section enters and together with it the multiple use of different time signatures and the more complex cross- rhythm patterns, until a coda where broken octaves race up and down the fingerboard resulting in a final bar that closes on a very unexpected chord of a low F, topped by a Cb, and Eb, and an Ab.
This piece was still only for the advanced players amongst you, so providing you can get into Bogdanovic’s unusual harmonic and rhythmic world and you are reasonably advanced, then this piece will definitely appeal to you.
Chris Dumigan
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